Some movies I've seen lately are . . .

THE BIRD PEOPLE IN CHINA--interesting--developed themes related to impact of modernization

THE MAD PHOENIX--sad story of brilliant but socially naive opera writer

THE KING OF MASKS--excellent--wonderful film about tradition and change--beautifully constructed

THE TWINS EFFECT II--I thought this movie was fun--it cannot be taken seriously--Jaycee was all right as far as I could tell in not-very-demanding role

I'm sorry I don't have anything more profound to say--I'm just so glad this forum is back!

So what have you been watching durilng the hiatus?

Finally watched Infernal Affairs 2, liked it almost as much as the first.

Onna Kyuketsuki (The Lady Vampire) which was interesting but felt a bit flat to me.

Another Japanese film I saw was Goke: Bodysnatcher From Hell which was a great deal of fun.

Finally, I watched Satorare - Tribute to a Sad Genius (Transparent) as well, this was fine, but a little too bland and mainstream feeling for me.

I've seen a mixed bag of movies in the cinemas since MHVF went down. The biggies here were Wong Kar-wai's 2046 and Johnnie To's YESTERDAY ONCE MORE. 2046 was pretty attractive and had great showings from Tony Leung and Zhang Ziyi, but I must give it all another look when it hits DVD. YESTERDAY ONCE MORE is a slick and fairly entertaining Andy Lau & Sammi Cheng flick that moves into an interesting ending. I liked the low budget ESCAPE FROM HONG KONG ISLAND a lot and thought it was a promising debut picture for Simon Loui (as director), with a simple concept and good performances. At the low end, there were MY SWEETIE and THE ATTRACTIVE ONE. MS was mostly dull comedy until an uplifting final five minutes and Lau Ching-wan was the more attractive one in TAO to me, not Joey Yung.

As for home viewing, I've had a good run with older local movies. I thought ANGEL WITH THE IRON FISTS was an exceptional '60s secret agent movie with Lily Ho and I thoroughly enjoyed A TIME FOR LOVE, with Ho as the lead actress again. The DVD box strangely doesn't mention that ATFL is a musical, but it's a lively one that gets increasingly bizarre as it moves along. Finally got round to SPLENDOR OF YOUTH and found it a superb '50s Cantonese melodrama, and FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE was a nice family drama also in the Cathay range. I also enjoyed seeing COLOURFUL PARTNERS this past weekend too.

And I'm also glad to see this board up again!

Tim.

HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS is great fun and surprisingly intimate with 3 characters and a simple plot but with plenty of pleasing visuals and setpieces. Takeshi Kaneshiro and Zhang Ziyi are in fine form but Andy doesn't impress as much....but then his character doesn't really allow him to have much to work with. It's certainly not as great as HERO but it's fine entertainment. The R3 Edko DVD is from a PAL-to-NTSC master (it runs 115 min compared to the official 119) with ghosting and artifacts during pans and in detailed background images (especially apparent in the Peony Pavilion sequence) and contrast level a little too high. The DTS track sounds fine. Not a recommended purchase but it's ok enough to last until a better release comes along.

Watched 2046 on the cut and dubbed mainland Chinese DVD. Really love everything in it. It goes on for too long with Gong Li section that could have been easily eliminated without affecting the movie. It's a give or take really: take this out and the haunting image of Li with smeared lipstick on her face won't be there. Can't wait to see this again with Tony Leung's actual performance intact with his actual voice acting.

Glad to hear that Simon Loui has finally turned to directing. Is it a crime movie (that he always excels at)?

Glad to see the board back up. These forums have been a treasure trove of info while researching papers for my film classes.
I finally saw Ong Bak the other day. Very cool fight scenes with not so cool character development. I think Phanom Yeerum, or Tony Jaa, as he is being called, definitely has a future as a major actor if he could just get ahold of a meatier script.

Very glad the forum is back and I must say although its an interim site, I like to layout better...Much easier to follow threads, etc...! :D

No, ESCAPE... is about a wealthy man who suddenly loses his job and becomes so cash-strapped that he can't cross the harbour to get hired at another company in the afternoon. Far from crime drama material or horror (another Loui speciality) and also very far-fetched but I thought it was a fun one with more cinema references to Hong Kong's changing fortunes.

Although I'm not one of the most frequent visitors (I think the site was down a week or more before I discovered it.. and even longer before I learned what happened!), I'm absolutely thrilled to have it back. Thanks Todd! You see, if it were not for this board, I might never have met Yvonne, who was responsible for introducing me to Brian and Grady, two-fifths of what was to become the 1st incarnation of Subway Cinema (the other two fifths being Goran and (having been) Nat, who I met through Ryan Law, who - interestingly enough - I also met via an online vehicle... Alt.Asian-Movies). Thus, without Mobius, there might not be a Subway Cinema... or, at least, it would look very different than it does today (especially given the dominant public role Grady has come to play so well).

What have I watched lately? Well, among the Asian films I watched have been HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS, THE WORLD, ONE NITE IN MONGKOK, LOVE UNDERCOVER, ONG BAK, OLDBOY, ARAHAN, and THE BIG SWINDLE. Of these, OLDBOY made the strongest impression, though I can also recommend ONE NITE IN MONGKOK, and... despite their flaws... ONG BAK and HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS.

The biggest disappointment for me was ARAHAN, which I had fairly high hopes for, but found far too silly. That said, I never did get around to watching the end of the film, which is said to be the best part, in as much as that is where the action is, due to my mistakenly having thrown the disc in the garbage while tossing out a pile of old riot grrrl CD's. I also did not see the end of THE BIG SWINDLE, but that one was entirely by choice!

I finally got around to watching a few of Kiyoshi Kurosawa films that most people have already probably seen ages ago. For some reason I avoided him for the most part because the descriptions just sounded like something that would not appeal to me. Then a while back I saw Bright Future which I found pretentious and boring and Doppleganger which was interesting and curious but never fully engaged me. But over the past couple days I caught up with Cure, Seance and Charisma and am admittedly still ambivalent about his work, but extremely intrigued with how he approaches films. I don't know if anyone else makes such off-kilter films that keep you off balance or anyone who creates unease the way he does - but the opaque mysticism that he inserts is both fascinating and frustrating because he never ties things up neatly as we normally expect in films. Part of you wonder if he is a cinematic fakir or an amazing filmmaker.

Ps - pre-Mobius going down I had promised someone to let him know if the Thai vcd of Fun Bar Karaoke had subs or not - much to my excitement it did and its quite good if not up to Pen-ek Ratanaruang's later films - Last Life in the Universe, 6ixtynin9 and Monrak Transistor. The only issue may be that 10 minutes of the film may be missing - not that you notice but I came across a few running times on the Internet of 103 minutes and the vcds came to 93 minutes - but perhaps the times are incorrect.

Welcome back, one and all. Let me add my thanks, too, to Todd for all his efforts.

An uncharacteristic lull in my viewing the past weeks. Finally, last night, I watched DRIFTERS by Wang Xiaoshuai (Beijing Bicycle, Frozen, So Close To Paradise). It's offers an alternate view of illegal immigrants from the perspective of the main character, Little Brother, who has been deported back to China. When his father-in-law and son return for a visit, he tries desperately to see his son. A karaoke scene features a Wu Bai tune, The Wanderer's Song. The film is lengthy at two hours and the pacing is on the turgid side. However, I found myself enveloped by the story.

The DVD features a 15 minute interview with the director (w/o subs) a Sony trailer for Beijing Bicycle.

The Mobius community lives! Hooray, and thanks once more, Todd!! :)

As for what I watched during the hiatus:-

From Hong Kong:-
BREAKING NEWS -- Style over substance, but what style! -- 7.5 (on the brns.com scale)
NEW POLICE STORY -- Wow...Jackie Chan's still got it after all, *and* is man enough to generously share the screen with charismatic young Turks like Nicholas Tse and Daniel Wu (though, sadly, apparently not mature enough still to admit that he is old enough to be such as Charlie Yeung's father!) -- 9
NEW TALES OF THE FLYING FOX -- A late and minor Shaw Brothers action movie which, nonetheless, is capable of a few surprises and novel touches -- 6
GOLDEN SWALLOW -- Seeing as they have a character and lead actress in common, can't help comparing it to COME DRINK WITH ME...and thinking that King Hu was a far more visionary, capable, etc., etc. auteur than Chang Cheh -- 5
THROW DOWN -- Am increasingly awed by Johnnie To's ability to combine emotional depth plus heft with unabashed entertainment, and ability to make me actually appreciate actors I usually don't care for (in this case, Aaron Kwok (yes, really!)!) - 8

From Japan:-
SWALLOWTAIL BUTTERFLY -- Finally viewed this 1996 Shunji Iwai film after many years and much cajoling to do so from Messrs. Paul Kazee and Travis Dockweiler. Suffice to say that I felt obliged to thank the two of them profusely afterwards - 9.5 (maybe even 10)

From Mainland China:-
THE MISSING GUN -- An interesting piece of work containing a commanding performance from Jiang Wen which, nevertheless, left me feeling that it could and should have been better -- 6.5
ELECTRIC SHADOWS -- A modest yet magical film which attests to the magic that movies can bring into our lives. Check it out when you have the chance to do so! -- 9

From Taiwan:-
FORMULA 17 -- Taiwan's top grossing local film this year has an immensely entertaining, even great, 1st 1/2 hour but then is badly paced and very disappointing afterwards (perhaps not coincidentally, when it goes from comic to dramatic) -- 6

From elsewhere in the world:-
THE PRINCE & ME (U.S.A.) -- Yes, I voluntary viewed and enjoyed this fluff piece. So sue me! :P

It's good to have everyone back -- thanks for your kind words.

I saw DIL CHAHTA HAI a few nights ago as part of the Bollywood showcase at the Austin Film Festival (also screening are COMPANY and MAIN HOON NA). We had a screwed up print that didn't have subtitles after the intermission, which was both frustrating and fascinating. It was fascinating because just about everyone stayed -- I figured most would have walked out -- and continued to react with laughter and emotion to the tone and delivery of the dialogue despite the fact that they obviously weren't understanding Hindi. It was almost as if the audience became part of the creative process by imagining their own dialogue! And for a film that was pretty run of the mill!

THE MISSING GUN -- An interesting piece of work containing a commanding performance from Jiang Wen which, nevertheless, left me feeling that it could and should have been better -- 6.5

I happened to pop this DVD into my new laptop to test out the DVD drive and I got sucked into watching the whole film again. Excepting for the wtf ending, I still find it hard to find fault with the film. And yes, Jiang Wen is terrific here. BTW, the director's sophmore effort Ke Ke Xi Li about antelope poachers in western China has just been released on DVD.

Hello and nice to be back :)

Some recent viewings:

NOCHNOI DOZOR (NIGHT WATCH): Russian sci-fi/vampire/action film about a guy that gets caught up in the 1000 year old conflict between good and evil, with a very literary plot (it's based on a novel) that can be hard to follow but rewards the effort immensely, and features some absolutely stunning cinematography and special effects. I've seen very few Russian films, and none of them remotely prepared me for something as well made and unashamedly cool as this film. Best of all, it's the first part of a planned trilogy, so more to look forward to.

LOVE BATTLEFIELD: Very unusual love story wrapped in a crime film - powerful and suspenseful. Guaranteed to give a new appreciation for Eason Chan if nothing else.

SILMIDO: Big budget Korean film based on true events that are quite scandalous, but the execution of the film left me absolutely cold.

ARAHAN: Korean fantasy action that's almost as much fun as My Sassy Girl, with the added bonus of some great action scenes (if wires and CGI don't offend you).

WINDSTRUCK: Follow-up to My Sassy Girl that largely lacks that film's charm or emotional depth. Felt like they were trying too hard.

AN AMOROUS WOMAN OF TANG DYNASTY: Shaws period film that gives the impression it would be excellent if the original 3 hour cut were presented on the Celestial DVD, rather than the severely edited 97 minute version. Still somewhat enjoyable even in short form.

RAINING IN THE MOUNTAIN: One of King Hu's most highly regarded works finally gets a DVD release, on a very nice quality DVD from France that - most unusually - includes English subtitles. Excellent English subtitles, at that. A first watch left me not especially impressed with the film, but that was probably due to excessive anticipation (and not being in the right environment to concentrate fully), so I expect a second viewing in the future to be more satisfying.

A TALE OF TWO SISTERS. Korean horror flick that played as part of the first Los Angeles International Korean Film Festival. Generally satisfying, with several good jolts, though the conclusion hewed a bit close to horror conventions.

BRIDE AND PREJUDICE: THE BOLLYWOOD MUSICAL. Will be playing in Los Angeles at AFI FEST in November. Evidently this has received negative press after its opening in the UK. As a Bollywood near-virgin, I can't comment on that aspect, but as yet another adaptation of a Jane Austen novel, it was more entertaining than I had anticipated. Very colorful, as you would expect. Martin Henderson, a rather drab presence in the US version of THE RING, is about the same here. Very much a "general audience" movie, though I imagine it will be a tough sell for Miramax -- and Miramax has dropped the ball far too often to inspire confidence.

SEOUL TRAIN. Will have its world premiere in Los Angeles at AFI FEST in November. Fairly dry presentation, but the subject matter is what catches the interest: North Koreans attempting to escape by crossing the border into China via a modern version of the "underground railroad." The Chinese government tries to track them down and send them back to North Korea, where they face imprisonment and possible torture. Very sobering.

Non-Asian titles: SHAUN OF THE DEAD (highly recommended), plus a bunch of screener tapes for the festival.

Most of my time has been occupied with work and moving. But yes, I'm glad to see the board back too!

Re Dennis' comments re THE MISSING GUN:-
"Excepting for the wtf ending, I still find it hard to find fault with the film. And yes, Jiang Wen is terrific here. BTW, the director's sophmore effort Ke Ke Xi Li about antelope poachers in western China has just been released on DVD."

I think the main problem for me was that I had been led to think that the film would be more surreal and imaginative than it turned out to be. Also, felt that none of the other actors in the movie had half the charisma and ability of Jiang Wen, and that it suffered as a result of this.

I had the benefit of not knowing anything about the film going in. It was a blind buy for me. Jiang Wen, mainland film, English subs and it's in the basket for me. I don't think I even knew it was the director's debut until I saw the film and went searching for reviews on the web. That's when I read it was supposed to be avant garde and innovative. A case of ingnorance is bliss, my specialty. And after all, it is Jiang Wen's character's story so I didn't particularly notice the other characters portrayals as weak. The caliber of the rest of the cast may indeed be subpar given, as I recall, that the production was low budgeted (Jiang Wen took a salary cut to participate) and it being the director's debut.

Perhaps you've seen Where Have All the Flowers Gone, another mainland film touted as avant garde? If so, I'd be curious to your thoughts on it. I preferred the former, but it's probably just me getting old. I should go back and give it another spin, though, to refresh my memory.

Latest films I've seen are "Hidden Heroes" starring Ronald Cheng and Charlene Choi (of TWINS fame). Cute sci-fi comedy, although I've heard the English subtitles loses a bit of the translation but as a native Cantonese speaker, I enjoyed the humour Ronald Cheng pulls off in his movies.

I've already seen "House of Flying Daggers" in theatres when it screened at the Toronto International Film Festival last month. I was frustrated and angry when I saw it because at the time they screened it, they were really supposed to be airing Stephen Chow's "Kung Fu Hustle". If any of you were put in the same situation as I was, any of you could have understood why I reacted the way I did. However, the film was enjoyable in its first 3/4 of them film, I found the ending a little messy.

Yeah, Mobius is back!

Watched Lately:

Twins Effect II. Enjoyed this light movie more than I thought I would. Being a sequel I guess I didn't expect much. The Twins were fun as usual. I enjoy seeing their costumes whether in a movie or DVD of their live performances.

McDull, Prince de la bun. Liked this as much if not more than the first movie. An imaginative bittersweet tale about McDull's father. His fantasy life was both sad and fun. Wonderful soundtrack.

Bird People in China. Enjoyed this movie a lot. Beautiful setting, good actors and well told tale. The da Vinci reference in the movie is so much better than the too popular novel, The da Vinci Code.

Ingeniously Taking Mount Hua. China. Black & white movie made in 1953/1954. This propaganda movie was less heavy handed than I'd feared. Could see Soviet film making influences. Had a lot of fun watching it as I've climbed Mount Hua. I 'may' have annoyed the person watching it with me as I kept making comments like 'oh, oh, look, we climbed up there & there'. Finally the person commented, 'Too bad you didn't fall off .' ;-)

Too funny. Thanks for the quick review. I'm looking forward to seeing it. I know Peter? was going to pick it up right before the old forum went down and wanted to hear his thoughts if he'd seen it yet. So good to hear your impressions on it. How about Fighting North and South, anyone see it yet?

I've found the modern political films quite enjoyable and not as dry as one would think, re: Legend of Tianyun Mountain, Gun Shots Over the Plains or Lu Guo Qiao Incident.

Well, I know Brian wanted to hear my thoughts on this one when I saw it (much later than I expected for some reason):

****1/2 DRAGON SWAMP: Lo Wei was never a great director, but he was at least consistently mediocre with a knack for surrounding himself with real talent and imitating his superiors. DRAGON SWAMP is another attempt to borrow some of the success of King Hu's films with a bit of Chang Cheh influence as spice. Cheng Pei-Pei plays two roles in the film, and is adorable in both. Lo Lieh also gets one of his best early parts, and Yueh Hua's presence is always welcome even if this role isn't one of his best moments. The film is undoubtably the best Lo Wei work I've seen so far - though this has little to do with his direction, which is pedestrian, and everything to do with the strong story, great cast and beautiful production design. And it has real dragons!

Dennis asked: "Perhaps you've seen Where Have All the Flowers Gone, another mainland film touted as avant garde?"

Have to confess not only to not having seen it but also not having heard about it! So if you've seen it yourself, pray, tell (more) re it.

Anyways, while we're having a discussion, will point out that ELECTRIC SHADOWS -- the other Mainland Chinese movie I've viewed recently, and which I way preferred -- also marks the debut of a young director. And, as far as I can tell, it's cast comprise unknowns. Funnily enough though, one of the actresses appears to bear more than a passing resemblance to Maggie Cheung Man Yuk while a supporting actor's visage brought to mind the late Lo Lieh's! B)

I've seen that one and was pretty impressed. It's the first film of its type I've seen and the production values were remarkably high. It is rather heavy-handed but the enthusiastic PLA soldiers and heroic guerillas are pleasing to watch, and the battle and marching scenes can be pretty grand at times. The film follows a series of 1947 battles, starting with scenes of PLA troops feeling down about cycles of retreating and not fighting. Facing Chiang Kai-shek's well-equipped army, they put up a strong fight at a village and suddenly vanish to the hills for a game of patience and strategy to retake lost territory. Glad I saw the movie but I'm in no great hurry to follow it up with INGENIOUSLY TAKING MOUNT HUA.

Yes, that was me. I did pick them up, and so far have watched INGENIOUSLY TAKING MOUNT HUA. In a word, I loved it. I wrote something up and put it online here:

INGENIOUSLY TAKING MOUNT HUA -- REVIEW

I'm so very jealous, Sarah! My question: Is it as terrifyingly narrow, and overall lacking in safety fences, as it appears in the film? Or -- I read this online -- is there a cable car going up to the top? Now I'm picturing a restaurant up there. I'd be interested in hearing how the place looks these days.

I'm glad Mobius is back online! Hope I can figure out how to post on this thing. Easier to see all the threads, but one drawback to this system is that "sidebar" conversations are harder to keep track of, like this one, buried in the "What have you watched recently?" thread. But whatever! It works, it's online, it's good.

-- Peter

I will admit that I didn't relish the thought of going back to re-view this to refresh the old noggin. But I did last night and I must admit that, as so often, on the second go around enjoyed it immensely much more. Shelly Kraicer's advice to forget the story and simply enjoy it is well heeded. It's a film better suited to feeling and experiencing than watching. The film is hard to describe but somehow it connects with the viewer at some weird level.

Some thoughts about it I threw together this morning:

Imminently watchable and ultimately unfathomable. The two main leads Zhou Xun and Xia Yu quietly possess the screen. Coincidentally, this film like Drifters opens with a close up image of a burning flame. A Jules and Jim story crossed with Godard-style filmmaking by way of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Atlas and his roommate Yang meet Mirth in college. Both fall in love with Mirth and the two decide to share her, Yang has her during the week and Atlas on weekends. After graduation, the three agree to unknown to each other. The story is told in both black and white and color with homemade videos made by the characters. Add in a mysterious servant at a place called Society of Three located at One Twilight Lane, a fifty year pass where 'all wishes granted', and Atlas's college thesis that any two people in the world can be connected with the shortest path no more than ten people (the servant and the professor [and possibly masquerade dance guest] played by the same actor), mixed with non-traditional use of time and space and the result is a mesmerizing debut film by director Gao Xiaosong.

From the film:
After one has waited a long time/It is discovered that no time has really passed at all/Just like viewers of a movie watching themselves./...recollections are even less real than illusions./...films are more faithful to us than love./

The film music includes techno, pop ballads (including one written by the director and another performed by the actor playing Yang) and Eric Clapton's song If I Saw You in Heaven is used to nice effect. The visual elements are impressive, especially the opening black and white sequence. Zhou Xun is eerily reminiscent of Shu Qi (fear not). High marks for the cinematography by Yuan Xiaomen, art director Zhao Xiaoyu and music design by Chen Chen.


Peter: Thanks for the review. Sound terrific.

I know it's an older film, but I finally got around to watching THE EYE 2 this weekend, and was pleasantly surprised that Shu Qi delivered a fine performance, with none of the giggling airhead that I normally expect from her. The movie was sufficiently creepy to make me glad I wasn't viewing it alone.

Also in the player this weekend was SHAOLIN PRINCE with Ti Lung and Derek Yee. I found it a good mix of well-choreographed fighting (albeit a little much wire work), comedy, and drama. Ti Lung is always a joy to watch in action, and I'm gaining more of a liking for Derek Yee as I see his films.

I think for at least the last year, most of what I watched has been the Shaw Bros. films and Korean movies. I seem to have veered away from most of the current crop of Hong Kong film and haven't seen much of that at all.

"Warriors of Heaven and Earth" (on VCD)

I personally enjoyed it more than "Hero". Can't believe Sony only showed it in a single-digit number of theatres, while at the same time, "Hero" got a good wide (2000+ theatres) release - from the very Miramax!

BTW, nice to have Mobius back! :)

Lately i'm somewhat taken a break from asian films for once. After having watched so many World War II movies and not knowing much about it (hey, it was way before my time) I've been watching lots of World War II documentaries. Started with one that was over 15 hours and am now trying to finish THE WORLD AT WAR..the whole 22 hours of it. It's very slow going, when the previous one was fun to watch, despite not being 100% accurate.

I'm now pretty much hooked on the ZATOICHI series. I started with Zatoichi I and wasn't very interested in watching the rest of the series. Found the one made in the 80's and thought it was OK. Only upon seeing Takeshi Kitano's version did I want to go back and watch them. I'm pretty sure that I'll be trying to finish the entire series.

I've now seen parts 1-8 and usually buy them 2 at a time from local malls at the normal price of $19.99, yes really. I have no complaints despite them being 84-95 minutes long. So far every single one has been good. I can't think of any that have been bad so far. Kitano's ZATOICHI is good in many ways, but compared to the old titles it's the worst. Takeshi Kitano doesn't seem to know the character that well it seems. I can give you half a dozen reasons why I think this, but I won't.


Saw quite a few movies since MOBIUS was down. Not many compared to before though. With my new sofa, Grand Wega and Polk home theater system i've found myself starting to watch more movies now than previously.

Here are a few of them:

FLOATING LANDSCAPE 7.5/10

This isn't anything like I expected. Believe it or not for some strange reason I went into this thinking it was directed by some new guy. That one actor from all the Johnnie To movies. I feel kind of stupid for that. After watching it I realized it was made by the same person that directed GLASS TEARS (a movie I HATED) and was surprised I had liked it so much. The movie was a little slow going and I had to stop and start it over 5 times, but i'm glad I stuck with it. I think the nice cinematography alone could have kept me watching it. The story is nothing special and kind of dull, so that's why it doesn't get a higher grade from me. The ending..well..I won't say anything about that. Part of it felt like a borrowed idea from another of one of my favorite films.

DOUBLE SUICIDE 9/10
Why didn't I buy this a year ago when I had a chance? Since this was based on a puppet play I had a feeling that it'd be sort of boring, or all done on one set or a stage. Not so..takes awhile to get going, but when you get into it you don't want to turn it off. Definitely won't make you feel very happy when you're done watching it. It's painful to watch the end and it gave me bad dreams, which is rare for a movie.

SILMIDO 8/10
Why is that a year ago when a new movie from korea was released everyone would be talking about it if it was good. Now it's as if when any new movie that did well at the box office in korea nobody seems to even know it exists online. I heard just a few comments on mobius about this one. Several of the asian DVD stores based in the USA don't even carry it even after requesting they do so.

I'll be short with this one and say that the first half is so badly done in some ways that I was thinking there was no way I was going to like it. Well, halfway through it started to get better thankfully. After seeing DOUBLE SUICIDE the day before I DID not want to see another terribly depressing film. Yep, this is another one. Leaves a bad feeling in your stomache afterwards and I couldn't help thinking about this one even a day or two later.

HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS 8.5/10
Zhang Yimou is still one of my favorite director's EVER. If you think all his films are depressing and have unhappy endings, well, then you need to see TO LIVE. Maybe that will change what you think about him. Easily one of his best films. Anyway, I saw HERO and hated it so much that it was starting to frustrate me and make me angry. Like, why am I sitting here watching this movie? Sure it's nice looking but your idea of art doesn't really make much of a enjoyable or entertaining movie. I don't need to be entertained, but at least make the actors do their job instead of acting completely lifeless on screen. It's pretty bad that when you have a scene where someone dies in a movie you could really care less? I was thinking to myself? Shouldn't I feel something here or just care that they just died? To me it's as if the director focused too much on all the visual aspects and neglected a lot of other things. Sorry, I was supposed to be talking about the above film.

I was reluctant to watch this film at all. Where HERO seems more like a drama than an action film, HOFD appeared in it's trailer to be more of an action film. So, out of nowhere I bought the DVD the day it came out.

Unlike HERO the movie was nice to look at but was fun to watch. The characters seemed to have a little bit of personality. Can't say the same about Zhang Ziyi. Maybe mean to say, but i'm wondering if she can really act. I've seen her in 4 or 5 films and she seems to act the same in each. A lot of the times she just acts mad at something or just has no expression on her face. Maybe that's what the director's have always demanded of her? At least I know now she has no problem with crying onscreen. I've seen her do that more times than I need to.

Do you ever watch such an amazing fight scene in an asian film where it can literally take your breath away? Sorry to sound corny, but I hope so. It was that way with Crouching Tiger, Iron Monkey and maybe even a little bit in this film. The fight scenes were so well done that I just wanted to see more of them. They don't have fight scenes every 10 minutes, but that's a good thing.

The story is just so-so and that's the main negative thing about the movie, that, and Zhang Ziyi. I feel like in some parts of the movie they threw in a lot of stuff just to please the audience. No big deal. Then of course you had some unintentional humor in parts of the movie. Didn't bother me much at all. After being almost sick of Zhang Yimou films I now can't wait to see his next one. Oh BTW the movie has a lot of moments where you'll think "Yeah, right!". At least it was that way with me. Besides the cinematography the soundtrack was also pretty good. I don't really notice them that much though I hate to admit.

TAEGUKGI 9/10
The movie I can't pernounce very well without sounding dumb. I love war movies and especially Korean ones, so when this came out I purchased it immediately and skipped just renting it. I paid about $33 I believe and it was worth every penny. I probably paid an extra $10 just for the piece of metal part of the case is made out of. Is it just me that thinks this or does Korea make some of the best DVDs there is?

The first part of the movie seems like your typical korean melodrama. "oh, it's one of those movies.." It's as if you see it and you know what it will turn out to be like somewhat. During the first part the music was annoying as hell. The train scene has some of the most overdone acting for a "sad" scene i've seen in such a long time. I was actually laughing at it unfortunately.

After awhile the movie switches it's tone and starts getting darker and more depressing as it goes along and it doesn't let up on you very long. If you want a movie that's easy to watch and enjoy then this is not for you probably. There's lots of blood and guts in it for sure. In fact, it may be the bloodiest Korean film i've seen yet. I remember SAVING PRIVATE RYAN being pretty bad, but this might be close, or maybe I just haven't seen SPR in a long time. I could give you a half dozen sick examples. If I told you, you would think twice about seeing the movie if blood and guts bothers you. I can take a lot of gore, but some of it is pretty graphic to say the least. If I had to see that sort of stuff day after day it would definitely effect me.

I haven't heard much about it's budget, but it must have been pretty high and it shows. Everything looks just about perfect to me. Ok, all except those CGI planes in one scene. A handheld camera is used in one scene and it jumps around a little, but i'm used to it by nice. The cinematography is amazing, as silly as it sounds, i've never seen a character being blown away look so artistic before. They just made sure everything looked right. The makeup guy must have had a rough job..all that blood and mud everywhere. Must have been like hell for the actors in it as well. It's nice to see a war movie where it's not all focusing on the action, but more on the two characters. When it comes to the characters, stuff like SAVING PRIVATE RYAN just can't compare. I didn't want to compare the two movies, but it's hard not to.

I haven't seen a war movie with such a dark and depressing tone for a long time. The only one that comes to mind might be Stalingrad towards the end. That's one of my favorite war movies, along with THE THIN RED LINE.

Anyway, this is a good one. It's a pretty sad film but worth watching for sure. Probably the best film i've seen in 3 months.

MEMORIES OF MURDER

I finally caught up with this 2003 Korean drama/thriller last night. After hearing a lot about how great the film is, I was disappointed by it and found it to be just an average police procedural film. I thought it was a good movie, but not a great movie. A lot of reviews I read said it could show Hollywood a thing or two about making a thriller, but I found it to be almost exactly in the same mold of recent Hollywood thrillers (esp. SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, which it closely resembled).

Welcome back, Mobius! (I hope we get the old format back, though. I loved seeing all the current posts laid out on one page one right after the other.)

I've been in the process of buying an apartment and preparing it for habitation and planning to move in November, so I haven't seen a lot lately. But I did see two that might be of interest here: ANGEL WITH THE IRON FISTS (Shaw Bros., 1966) and PARASITE EVE (Japan, 1977).

Tim Youngs seems to have liked ANGEL more than I did. I thought it had many of the right elements (martial arts, car chases, romance, spy gadgets, attractive costumes, lavish sets, beautiful actresses, etc.) for what should have been an entertaining 1960s James Bond rip-off, but the director, Lo Wei, didn't know what to do with them. It's as if he didn't want to get anything dirty or messed up, so he didn't let the actors play rough. Everything's too restrained, too polite and genteel. I mean, Ku Feng letting little Lily Ho knock him out? Come on! It's a nice film to look at, but it was something of a chore for me to sit through.
And what's with the casting of Lily Ho as a sophisticated woman of the world (and secret agent) who has (mild) love scenes with an actor who was 42 at the time? I checked the Biographical Features section of the DVD and it gave Lily's birth year as 1952, making her all of 14 at the time of production! Granted, she doesn't look it, but still...the knowledge left me a little queasy.

PARASITE EVE is a hard film to describe. It's all about mitochondria with an agenda. And I can't really say more than that because I didn't really understand it. There are many good ideas in it but the film should have either gone way over the top and been an effects-filled sci-fi/horror spectacular or, better yet, just cut out all the special effects entirely and focused on the human drama and its sci-fi subtext. The few special effects are really hokey. (Plot sum-up: A biologist's wife is killed in an auto accident but her cells live on in his experiments and in a donated organ and strange things begin to happen--that's all I can say.) It's well-acted, the characters are interesting and the beautiful finale is very moving. BUT...I have a rule. If, when a film reaches its half-way point and I still have no idea where it's going, I throw up my hands and give up. Since this film is two hours, I was officially lost at the 60-minute mark. I'm sorry, but that's too long to keep viewers in the dark. I stuck with it, and I grasped a little more at the 70-minute mark, but by then my interest level had sunk pretty low and the finale wasn't enough to redeem it. The lead actress--Riona Hazuki--is very beautiful, however.

Because of my housing situation, I missed all the New York Film Festival Asian films and Shaw Bros. retrospective. So that's all for now. Gotta get back to packing.

Just curious -- is the "Parasite Eve" Playstation game a spin-off or adaptation from this movie?

doug

One of the features I like about this style of forum is you can see how many people have responded and how many have viewed the responses.

So 30 people have posted and 1043 people have viewed the posts. Say the 30 posters have viewed 30 posts. Thats 900 views. That leaves 143 views. Where are your posts? What I like about 'what have you watched lately' questions is getting a brief description of movies I haven't seen and now may want to see or not. The more people that join in the more fun it is.

This weekend I watched Formula17 which inspite of being predictable & cliched I found entertaining. I enjoyed the side kick guys a lot. Also rewatched Tokyo Raiders with a friend who wanted to see Tony Leung in a role less serious than In the Mood for Love.

The Parasite Eve games were a spinoff that took place after the original novel.
I've read the manga adaptation of the novel from which the movie is loosely based on. I would assume the manga is much more faithful to the novel is, seeing that the movie changed alot of details.

The manga version was released in Hong Kong, translated from the original Japanese version. I am not sure if it is still in print or not. I remember it being very thick.

" checked the Biographical Features section of the DVD and it gave Lily's birth year as 1952, making her all of 14"

No, thats incorrect - she was born in 1946 making her 20 at the time - still young but far from underage! I liked ANGEL WITH THE IRON FISTS a lot myself - with Lily Ho in the lead I wasn't expecting great martial arts - just a nice look to the film and some fun and I think it delivered on that. And taking into account the year of the film - having a top deadly female agent who uses men to her advantage and then discards them seems a bit ahead of its times. Compare it to Modesty Blaise which came out about the same time - that also was a female super agent but while Angel was generally serious in nature Modesty felt the need to completely camp it up.

Hello again (My -- correction :blink: -- 4th post on this thread)!

To Dennis: Thanks for the review of WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE. Characters named Atlas and Mirth (along with Yang). Zhou Xun reminding you of Hsu Chi. Ooo errr...Having said that, was impressed by Zhou Xun in THE EMPEROR & THE ASSASSIN (thought that she was pretty much the best human part of the movie) and HOLLYWOOD, HONG KONG. So maybe I'll give WHATFG a try if I ever come across a video of the movie. Or maybe I really ought to not delay any further checking out SUZHOU RIVER... ;)

Also, re Sarah's writing that:-
"This weekend I watched Formula17 which inspite of being predictable & cliched I found entertaining. I enjoyed the side kick guys a lot."

That's the thing for me with FORMULA 17: I.e., I liked the sidekick guys -- especially the bumpkin's old hometown buddy -- way more than one of its leads (the one playing Mr. Cool/the Stud from Hong Kong). More re the movie: The scene in the bar was sooooo great. Enjoyed the beach courtship scenes -- which, again, featured the old hometown buddy -- as well. But beyond that...

Anyways, since I last wrote about what I have watched lately, have additionally viewed the following:-

SEPEK (Malaysia) -- A rare Malaysian movie which centres on a romance between an ethnic Chinese lad and a Malay lass...who happens to be a fan of Hong Kong movies and Takeshi Kaneshiro. They meet when she goes to his (pirated VCD, alas) stall in search of Takeshi Kaneshiro movies, decides to get LOST AND FOUND but also ends up coming away with -- at his insistence -- a copy of CHUNGKING EXPRESS. Among the Cantonese songs which feature in this movie: That song which can be heard when the second nostalgic montage is shown in JUST ONE LOOK! -- 6.5 (maybe even a 7) out of 10 for effort at least.

HANA & ALICE (Japan) -- My second Shunji Iwai helmed movie in less than a month!! What is the world coming to?? :lol: More seriously though, I guess that any of the director's films would have been an anti-climax after SWALLOWTAIL BUTTERFLY. And while HANA & ALICE is not at all bad, I can't help but wish that this modest coming-of-age movie -- which apparently started life as a serious of on-line KitKat commercials -- had had more, well, magical parts -- 7 on the brns.com scale

YESTERDAY ONCE MORE (Hong Kong) -- A change of pace and genre for the combo of Johnnie To, Andy Lau and Sammi Cheng in that it's a mellow romantic drama rather than a hyper romantic comedy. I liked, even while I didn't loooove, it (Also, can someone tell me how come Johnnie To seems to have lies and lying figure so prominently in his last three offerings??). However, will also record that my mother told me that she had nearly fallen asleep while watching the movie (with the last movie that she had felt that way being A PERFECT MATCH and the one before that being AND I HATE YOU SO...) -- 7.

Well, that's good news. Now I think I ought to watch it again--without the queasy feeling. ;)
But where did you get this birth info, Brian? I'd like to know a source to cross-check the Celestial DVDs' bio features with.

Actually from my site! But I am pretty sure the original source was one of Fonoroff's articles that he writes called "Reel Lives" that is a series of short bios on older HK stars that come out from time to time for a HK newspaper. On stuff like this I trust him completely.

A couple additions to my recent viewings - train trips seem to be the only time I have recently to watch much and these filled up my 6 hours.

Tarzan - a Bollywood take on Tarzan by the same guys who did Disco Dancer - not quite as much fun but the rubber snakes and alligators and the sexiest Jane (though called Ruby) ever with more wet sari scenes than I can count still made it generally fun stupid going. A 1985 production.

Bichoo - basically a Bollywood remake of The Professional - with one minor change - instead of a little girl they substitute her with Rani Mukerjee and that clearly changes the dynamics of the story as Bobby Deol as the professional killer is sucker punched by love and lust. Not all that great but still entertaining with Bobby "are you in a hurry to die" doing his own form of population control and a mini-skirted Rani running, shooting and dancing around Mumbai.

While Mobius was down, the Asian films I saw, in chronological order, were:

Zero Focus
Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan
The Demon
Soul Guardians
Lady Terminator
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin
The Postman Fights Back
The Bamboo House of Dolls
Deadly Outlaw Rekka
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
Agitator
Junk
Gojoe: Spirit War Chronicle

Such great posts everyone. I adore hearing stories like the one Todd told about the audience not leaving, and even enjoying, the unsubed film. I love reading continually great reviews of the same titles like SWALLOWTAIL BUTTERFLY that make me say to myself "I really gotta watch that someday"! And I’m blown away by some of the cool things people find to watch like a “Russian sci-fi/vampire/action film about a guy that gets caught up in the 1000 year old conflict between good and evil, with a very literary plot”! And a special thankyou to Sarah Knight for the kick in the pants re: “The more people that join in the more fun it is”. So here’s my list:

TAE GUK GI: The Brotherhood of War
The battle scenes were fantastic but became pretty repetitive which seemed to have been part of the point - hammering home the relentlessness. I would liked to have gotten to know some of the other characters better but was still moved to tears several times. Beautifully filmed and acted. 8/10

Temptation 2004 Tour
Fairly slick tour of Bllwd’s hottest stars right now. Shah Rukh Khan gave us much more time on-stage than I imagined he would - probably close to 3 out of the 4 hours! He was of course gorgeous, incredible, charismatic, funny, sweet, and just a little annoyed by the beattlemania screaming of his fans. Rani Mukherji was stunning and perfect. Saif Ali Khan, Priety Zinta and Priyanka Chopra all danced amazingly well - very, very impressive if a little by-the-book/over-rehearsed. And Arjun Ramphal was quite flat and not even that attractive but luckily not on stage that often. Not sure if it was the set-up or the source material or both but the canned music sounded pretty awful (at least in our nose-bleed section). The odd thing though was that for such a well produced show it was pretty sloppy. There were lots of dead points with a just a black stage and the show actually started off with a spot light check of some stage hand (very amateur). Still the production was rather dazzling with beautiful costumes, intricate choreography, awesome back-up dancers and fun set pieces (Shah Rukh stood singing KAL HO NAA HO while riding a little board out on-stage and then later danced on top of a train like platform that was carried through the audience to the stage a-la DIL SE’s famous train sequence). There were a number of silly skits, a send-up movie/play of KAL HO NA HO, Priyanka beautifully sang a little medley of hits and Saif rocked out on his guitar for awhile too. One of the most memorable parts was a little taped segment to start the show off that allowed the entire audience to sneak backstage and see the stars in their dressing rooms getting ready.

WARRIORS OF HEAVEN & EARTH
People are crazy - nothing wrong at all with this film. Your standard old fashioned western employing plenty of western (as opposed to eastern) movie conventions. The lead is perfectly played by the always awesome Jiang Wen. Vicki Zhou Wei doesn’t have much to do but is solid. The two adversaries are terrific creating standout characters required for this sort of epic battle genre. The gorgeous cinematography and setting almost outclass the concept. And it’s fun to listen to the Indian influences in the AR Rahman soundtrack which is not perfect but not bad either. 7/10

DIL NE JISE AAPNA KAHA
Slow, insipid, uninspired, uninterestingly acted love story with Salman Khan, Preity Zinta and the girl from TERE NAM who is supremely boring. I won’t give the synopsis since it gives too much away in case anyone cares. 3/10

THE HERO
My first Sunny Deol film. It’s pretty jarring to see him with fresh faced Preity Zinta and even fresher faced Priyonka Chopra. The plot is meager, basically about Sunny being the greatest man alive: sacrifices for his country, treats other cultures with respect, kind to loved ones, and is your basic can-do action hero. Plot devices were lifted from loads of Hollywood films like MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, THE SAINT, THE ROCK and especially from the James Bond films. Filled with loads of unintentional humor it was impossible not to love it for it’s utterly ridiculous writing, execution and over-the-top patriotism. Sunny’s “undercover” outfits are pathetic (however the blond dye and tinted glasses of one outfit did fool his enemy who says only his face looks a bit familiar - ha ha). And there are lots of extremely lame non-Indians (played by THE WORST white actors in the world) like the nuclear physicist who starts bouncing around in the laboratory and nearly knocks over some of the neon green glowing plutonium and is yelled at by his co-worker “Radiation, you fool!”. Every fight ends with someone being lifted into the air like a helium balloon and tossed into a wall or through a window. In the middle of this mess Preity managed to be really good; her role was actually rather interesting as a smart village youth who falls in love and is turned into an undercover agent for a short time. 7/10

BANG RAJAN
Finally got to see this Thai war epic about “the little village who could”. The score is somewhat overbearing, the true story too simply painted and the tone too patriotic and self congratulating. But the battle scenes, especially the last one, are very impressive. And the acting is solid even though the characters don’t come off as very realistic. 6/10

CHOKER BALI
Filled with dour and enigmatic characters it feels more like a 1980’s German art-film than a current Indian one. Not my cup. 4/10

SWORD IN THE MOON
A 17th Century court-intrigue/swordplay epic that’s well acted but sloppily constructed; the storyline being murky and obscure when not predictable. Essentially about two men who begin a great friendship while becoming soldiers in an elite rebel task force who soon find themselves on opposite sides in a civil war. The pace and score are rather plodding and much of the action left me uninterested. Some of the problem may have been that the format was a blurry projection of a DVD onto a theater screen at the Mill Valley Film Festival. (Why do programmers think this is acceptable? It looks like crap.) The final battle, however, (which according to our festival presenter was filmed two years after the rest of the film was finished), is nicely edited and quite riveting. 6/10

SHUKRIYA (THANK YOU)
A remake of Hllywd’s MEET JOE BLACK starring the Anupam Kher as the father who’s been granted two more days with his family before being taken by the god of death. There are a few genuinely sweet moments and happily much screen time is given to the sublime Kher but overall the film’s tone is uneven and has way too much filler. 5/10

SEASON IN THE SUN
Saw this at the Mill Valley Film Festival and the subtitles were read aloud for the one or two children in the audience who looked well old enough to read. As if that wasn’t bad enough the mike was turned way up and the reader was drowning out the film as well as giving us a major headache. We had to complain twice. It was so distracting, like having someone talking right next to you the entire time, so it’s hard to actually judge the film fairly; all of the subtleties of the performances were completely obscured. It’s a fairly simple film, (another reason it didn’t need to be read), with nothing very new to say. Basically about a new catholic priest and an old Buddhist priest in a small town who begin separately coaching soccer to two groups of self-conscious children. As everyone’s self-esteem rises they all come together to share the success. Created with an intentionally heavy-hand I think to appeal to young viewers. 5/10

FACE
A low budget, unevenly paced, generational story of Asian American women with very fine performances from Bai Ling and Kieu Chinh as her traditional mother. Unfortunately the film is hurt by the subpar acting from the rest of the cast who are given far too much screen time. 5/10


And as Yvonne puts it “From elsewhere around the world”:

RESIDENT EVIL 2: APOCALYPSE
It’s all about Milla! She’s just great but sadly not on screen enough. It’s a pretty standard story with some fairly awesome and creepy monsters. My main complaint is the headache inducing editing to make the fighting look better by cutting it really fast but it’s too fast and makes the scenes confusing and blurry. 6/10

VANITY FAIR
Pretty damn fun at first but quickly becomes rather disjointed and then the ending felt totally rushed - could’ve used the six-hour PBS/BBC mini-series treatment. 6/10

SHAUN OF THE DEAD
Totally fun. Even better than expected and I expected to like it well. 9/10


BTW I also vote for the style of the old site - thanks again Todd for keeping it all going.

October Round-Up

I've been really busy at work but am also shamed by Sarah that I haven't contributed to this thread now that Mobius is triumphantly emerging from the muck. Here's what I watched during October; I was just going to list these by category but once I got started I got a bit carried away:

(highlights)
THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON: a friend scored free tickets to this screening, part of the SF Jazz Festival. In addition to seeing the film in 3D, The Jazz Travellers performed not only their original score but also new dialogue, a la MST3K, nicely matched to the actors' delivery of their lines. Wonderful and hilarious!

SHAUN OF THE DEAD: I loved this movie!!!

(Asian films seen in San Francisco theatres)
LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE: saw this in April at the SF Int'l Film fest but felt it worth a second viewing, and I think I enjoyed it even more this time

JU-ON: wanted to see the Japanese version before tackling the remake; found it fairly scary if a bit confusing plotwise

HERO: couldn't pass up another chance to see this gorgeous film on the big screen (in a strange double bill with SILVER CITY, but hey!)

A TALE OF TWO SISTERS (Mill Valley Film Festival) : this is a VERY creepy and atmospheric South Korean film about a dysfunctional family who goes insane because of the wallpaper in their house (OK, not really, but it's a more logical explanation than the real, confusing plot)

ONG BAK; MUAY THAI WARRIOR (NAATA Fall Asian Film Showcase): more testosterone in this screening room than I've smelled since..... well, probably VERSUS. Lead Tony Jaa's agility and grace elevate the well-worn plot to a very entertaining level

(new stuff, for me, on DVD)
INFERNAL AFFAIRS III: a very satisfying epic but I still like the first film the best
SKY HIGH: another manga adaptation from Ryuhei Kitamura. Probably not his best effort in terms of action (swordfight) scenes, but I loved the concept of the Guardian of Hell giving choices to those killed by violence, and also liked the film's look
A FISHY STORY: older Maggie Cheung/Kenny Bee film newly available on video at my local rental place. Lightweight but a nice (and rare?) leading vehicle for Bee
EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED: Whoa. Effective, gutwrenching, and brutal
BIG SHOT'S FUNERAL: strange but enjoyable; Donald Sutherland is usually worth watching and the performance by Ge You was really fun
THE TOUCH: not a classic by any means but I did enjoy it, especially the final showdown set piece; Peter Pau's cinematography is gorgeous, as usual
BLUE SPRING: Toshiaki Toyoda's breakthrough film about disaffected Japanese youth, nicely nihilistic if rather depressing. The audio commentary by Tom Mes was very informative.

(Hallowe'en seasonal on DVD)
BIO-ZOMBIE
BUBBA HO-TEP
ED WOOD
WILD ZERO (probably the dumbest zombie movie I've seen, and I've seen quite a few....)

(comfort food)
ONCE A THIEF
A CHINESE GHOST STORY 1 & 2
CENTRE STAGE (follow-up to seeing Ruan Lingyu's THE GODDESS a few months ago during the SF Silent Film Festival)
TIME AND TIDE

(non-Asian films in the theatre)
VANITY FAIR (although this adaptation may sorta qualify as "Asian".....)
SILVER CITY
TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE (the most terrifying thing on film I've seen so far this year is probably the puppet sex in this movie)
THE NOMI SONG (Mill Valley Film Festival): fascinating new documentary about 1970s performance artist Klaus Nomi
STAGE BEAUTY